Oak Island

We are vacationing with our friends Tim, Merrill and their three cuties Eli, Will, and Kate. For the occasion, I have made shirts (10 of them) for us all to wear and as Tim says, put on our best Clark W. Griswold vacation faces. We are so so looking forward to this week at the beach with all of them. It will be a lot of burying Tim and Dave in the sand, by the children, while Merrill and I have a nice cold libation on the deck of the cottage. Yay for me and Merrill!!!!!

Molly and Caleb snuggle

Caleb and Molly were cute on the sofa. She insisted I take their picture.

Potter wavy arms

Potter is really good at this. Me, not so much. (The song, if you care, is 'Hella Good' by Gwen Stefani, I love it, Dave hates it!!!)

Who hates nature???

House across the street from us had a huge, healthy tree cut down (on the village of Endicott's dime) and caused me to have a heart attack. Why do people get rid of trees, bushes, shrubs??? Are they anti-nature? This tree was beautiful, maybe they just hate raking?? In any event, I took pictures in case there was any dispute about what happened. I had to document this. Ugh...it makes me sick.

T-Ball

T-ball this week was cold and rainy. It had rained all week, I was sure they would cancel, but no, we went and were freezing (Arnold Park is on the top of a mountain/hill and it is windy, there is nothing to block the weather) so I took very few pics. Molly did field the ball in the first pic, then there is a team meeting, then one of her at bats. She sure can slug that ball!!! And the good thing is she still LOVES t-ball!!

Lunch with Jesscherry, Johnnylittle, and Mollyariotti

After our long hikes, we decided we needed food (and beer for some) quickly!! Jesscherry was in town today cleaning out the rest of her apartment and she brought her boyfriend, Johnnylittle, with her, so we called them and they were able to come and meet us for lunch at Tully's right near campus. The kids were so excited to see Jess (mind you, she has only been gone for about 8 days from Bingo) and so having lunch with her, Riotti and Johnny was like winning the lottery!!! If you have followed previous posts, you have seen Molly (mine) wearing Jess's sunglasses while she is air-guitaring, so Jess handed them over to her again and I had to get the shot of that!! Riotti and Potter were seated adjacently in their own cozy corner. Molly (mine) immediately befriended Johnny, and I am pretty sure that Jess is not dating him anymore as Molly has totally taken him over with her 4 year old seduction. I think she offered him a french fry and he was hooked!!! Then before we left the restaurant and parted ways, we had to get a few shots of different parts of our group. No tears were shed, as Jesscherry promised she would come back to spend an overnight soon. Yay, we can't wait for that!!!

We came to the spot where Riotti and some friends had built a fort in the winter. Needless to say, it was no longer standing, so the kids and Riotti decided to try to rebuild it a bit. I think that they would have better luck if there were snow to use as mortar or something like that. We then went from the main part of the nature preserve to Stair Park, which is sort of a back entrance to the preserve that we have not been through. There was a pretty waterfall and then we walked along a trail we had never done before. Then Caleb decided he was tired and so we had to retreat, but I think we'll head back there again soon.

Memorial Day hike

This morning, we went to the nature preserve for a hike. We have not been out there for a long time, so we picked up Riotti and headed on the trail. Starting this winter, we have gone off of the usual pathway and have made our way down to the pond bridge going right alongside the mucky shore of the pond, avoiding the bullfrogs, machete-ing our way through the high grasses and fighting off the stupid gnats that swarm our eyes, noses and mouths. Cute pics of the kids, a good shot of me and Riotti, and another picture of me and Dave. We've had a few of those lately, sort of eerie!!!!!

Riotti and Potter

Cute picture of two friends in cahoots!!

Kids get blasted

The kids squirters can't compete with the hose.

Crazy man with hose

Then a masked man appeared, clothes were shed, and there was much reloading of 'ammunition'. Being the photographer mostly ensured my safety!!!

Hoses, water guns and squirting, oh my!

Things started off rather tame, clothes were on, squirting was civilized.

Baby eagles - part deux

Yesterday (Sunday) we went back to look at the baby eagles, but we brought, who else?, Riotti, Potter's friend Neil, and we also met our next door neighbor, Todd, there. Todd is the one who told us about the eagle next a week or so ago and he stops there often on his way home from work to check out the nest. When we arrived, the babies were in the nest and one parent was clearly visible, sitting out on the branch just a few feet from the nest. Only a few minutes after we arrived, the parent took off and went out of view. He/she didn't return the entire time we were there. We had three pairs of binoculars that offered really good views of the babies and Todd brought his spotting scope, which is nice because it 1) is on a tripod and is still instead of jiggly hands holding the binocs and 2) it gets much closer zoomed in than the binocs. There were a lot of other people in kayaks looking at the nest, a couple polite boaters in small boats who came ashore near us to look, and one idiot who kept zooming past the nest on a jet ski. I mean seriously, this is a protected area, and they should limit that sort of noise. I can see where the eagles would get agitated by that. All of us kids had a great outing, and I think the car ride home, playing games on Riotti's cell phone, might have been just as fun for the young ones as looking at the eagles!!!

Riotti comes after the eagles for dinner

Mollyariotti came over for dinner on Saturday night and after Wii, playing outside, and dinner, they all sat together and watched 'The Incredibles'. Caleb and Riotti are like the opposite sides of velcro, they always manage to stick together!!!!

First trip to see the eagles - Hiawatha Island

This was actually the second trip for Potter, Caleb and Dave to see the baby eagles on the Island. They went the previous weekend when Molly and I were at a party. We were there this past Saturday and the kids were totally into seeing the baby eagles as well as all the other related animals. The 'baby' eagles are about 5 weeks old now, but they are HUGE!! They are totally brown, a sign that they are still immature, cannot fly or feed themselves, so are totally reliant on mom and dad for their survival. The view that we get of them is from a bank on the Susquehanna river. The eagle nest is on Hiawatha Island up in a really tall pine tree. This nest has to be at least 6 feet in diameter, if not bigger. It is sad that we can really get good picture of the birds themselves, but we would need the National Geographic photographers with really super high powered zoom lenses with us. We did run into a woman with her dog who offered to take a family portrait of us. A rare thing for sure.

School - 1809 style

The kids are sitting, ready to use their slates, then we notice the large slats between the barn walls (to keep the hay dry and free from mold, who knew?) and then a lesson in how to use ink with a quill. Apparently, you can make ink from 1) berries 2) walnut shells that are ground up and 3) ash from the fireplace. If only we could recycle as much now as they did 200 years ago. It was such a learning field trip, both for the kids and the adults, at least for this adult.